Stylistic do’s and don’ts in academic writing

Date published November 26, 2014 by Shane Bryson. Date updated: March 27, 2017

The internet is littered with conflicting advice on the do’s and don’ts of academic writing. Some say avoid personal pronouns altogether, while others urge you to use personal pronouns carefully when necessary.

Some say to avoid phrases like “In this paper I will…” and word like “thus,” while certain disciplines (such as analytic philosophy) all but require you to use phrases like “In this paper I will…,” and a good number of prolific academic writers use relatively archaic words such as “thus” (especially the British).

One thing that they all agree on is that there is some set of relatively stable stylistic conventions that academics abide by, most of the time. What follows is a set of some of the most common stylistic issues that I’ve seen.

To make sure I don’t further contribute to the already conflicted body of internet advice on academic style, where there is some room to deviate from the conventional approach, I’ll try to make note.

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Shane finished his master's degree in English literature in 2013 and has been working as a writing tutor and editor since 2009. He began proofreading and editing essays with Scribbr in early summer, 2014.